UCLA Police Taser Student in Powell

[giza]

Pop Quiz: You're a police officer. After punishing an ID-less student by taking a taser to him, he is unable to stand up. What do you do? If you're working at UCLA, you taser the guy again:

Watch on YouTube

Here's some media coverage:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/16/ucla_taser_incident/
http://dailybruin.com/news/articles.asp?id=38960
http://www.nbc4.tv/news/10325914/detail.html

Was the student acting out of line? Probably. I could see him getting charged with disorderly conduct. But I'm inclined to think that these two cops tasering him multiple times crossed the line too. Was there any particular reason they couldn't call in additional backup, handcuff the student, and carry him out if need be? I've certainly seen that done before.

Comments

[puctiger.livejournal.com]

This video doesn't really do anything. You can't see what's going on, just hear things in the background. So it's hard to make any kind of judgment decision on what's going on.

"Mostafa Tabatabainejad"

[coyoteden.livejournal.com]

Well, there's your answer.

I'm sure the officers didn't know his name yet (seeing how he didn't have his ID) but if he looked even vaguely middle-eastern they weren't going to hesitate to use force.

It's OK to fry them sand-ni**ers, cuz' they all terrists.

[triggur.livejournal.com]

Well, the kid IS defiant the whole time. He's not doing what they tell him to. He's screaming obscenities at them and refusing to get up.

Yeah, he gets tazed. As many times as it takes.

[giza.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about the screaming part. And I hope he gets charged for that.

My understanding of the rest of the confrontation is that he was on his way out when the officers showed up. But then they grabbed him by the arm, which is where things started to get out of hand. I wasn't there, but I'd sure like to know what justification they had for making physical contact with him.

[triggur.livejournal.com]

And before that, what?

Obviously staff called the police on him, which suggests he was being abusive or threatening to them, wouldnt leave, etc. Just cuz he's on his way out doesn't mean he's off the hook for whatever precipitated them being called in the first place.

I'd be curious to hear what went on before they arrived.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Police were called because the staff was doing a random check of IDs and the student didn't have his. (And if that's the rules, then by all means, I hope he gets a writeup for that, too.)

[triggur.livejournal.com]

Okay.

Which means they asked him to leave and come back with his ID, and he got belligerent.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Bad move on his part. I think if he would have just shut up and left, it would have never escalated. Hmm.

[gen-talon.livejournal.com]

My two cents. Kid most likely deserved it. I can not tell very much with the video. But I think cops were even telling him that if he did not comply he would be tazed.
Also I think the kid is just trying to call attention to himself.

[theottsel.livejournal.com]

This is interesting because at my college we had a similar incident last month with the police tasering a student. There are a few things to consider.

1. The news reports quote the Daily Bruin, which is the student newspaper, and they get their reports from the students there. What we found in my paper was that the students who witnessed the event had very different stories, and htey all were negative and claiming brutality.

2. Tasers hurt, sure, but the standard taser that officers use is 10,000 volts. It hurts, but you can stand up after it. He certainly had enough strength to fight them when they tried to pick him up, and he had enough strength to rant about the Patriot Act.

3. Being a police officer is scary. When you have someone that is obviously making a scene and could possibly get violent, a non lethal weapon is a good idea. It's not like they shot the guy.

4. Claiming that they only did this because he was Middle Eastern is ridiculous. Our guy was white, and he got tasered for acting like a dick too.

This is standard procedure for a pilice officer. People freak out when this happens, but they shouldn't. Campus Police are real live POST certified police officers, and you should act like an asshole to them, nor should you disobey direct orders from them.

[irbisgreif.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* Doesn't surprise me, Police have been getting more and more violent with their 'non-lethal' weapons since the British invented the wooden bullet.

From my experiences with police, they are generally assholes anyway, even if you're trying to be /nice/. I got questioned for 30 minutes for trying to return a police flash drive.

"Where'd you find this?" - "At the corner of X any Y street."
"We had no officer's there... where'd you really find it." - "Yeah, you did, at XX00 o'clock there were 3 cars and 5 bike cops, there are ALWAYS 5 bike cops there at XX00 o'clock.
"That officer wasn't there." - "I don't know anyone, all I know is I found this"
"Do you know that theft is illegal?" - etc.,

I finally got him to take the damn thing and go away, but I did decide that if I ever find one again, it's /not/ being returned, those things are useful as hell.

[cspenn.livejournal.com]

Glad to see others are noticing this - come talk about it!

Click here to read what's been said by others and join the conversation! (http://www.financialaidpodcast.com/2006/11/16/the-power-of-ubiquitous-media/)

[rustitobuck.livejournal.com]

I will say first off that I have little sympathy for the kid not having his ID, and not complying politely with the officers. I totally agree with requiring ID of University students on campus after a curfew.

Michaelangelo Signorile did a piece on this today (well, Thursday), and I got to hear the tape of the event (I'd view it now, but I don't think I want to just before bed).

He took several calls, one of which was from a law enforcement officer, and one was from a public defender in Florida.

The LEO stated that the taser is there to subdue violent or fleeing subjects only. A merely noncompliant ("limp") citizen should be cuffed and carried off.

The public defender said that any time he had a case like this, basically the perpetrator walked, and the state ended up facing a multimillion dollar civil lawsuit.

We don't live in a police state. This is clear and outright punishment, but in the USA I grew up in, punishments are handed out by courts after a trial under certain guidelines.

Also, I'd have to dig again for the reference, but I did read a reference to a study that backed up the Wikipedia claim that "Two to three seconds will often cause the subject to become dazed and drop to the ground, and over three seconds will usually completely disorient and drop an attacker for at least several minutes and possibly for up to fifteen minutes."

I've been pretty dazed and shocked from taking a hit of 90VAC telephone ring current between myself and ground. I don't think I'd be getting up awful soon after a 300kV taser attack.

"Get up or I'll taser you again?"

The net effect is that of beating a child until he stops crying. Abuse. Pure and simple.

I expect law enforcement officers to be much more professional than that. I don't envy officers having to deal with difficult citizens, but keeping a level head under those circumstances is part of the job. I've never had a problem with an officer myself, even when I was in the wrong.

[dragonof31102.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to say about this. It's very disturbing. I'd have to agree with that. The video is somewhat unclear, the Audio is somewhat pretty clear. The taser thing reminds me of the discussion Preston and Steve (Morning Radio show hosts on a local Radio Station in Philadelphia). They talked about police using Tasers and they played this clip of this women who put up a fight after being pulled over. The continued to taser her when she was on the ground and they asked her to get up, but she couldn't get up because they tased her so much. I don't remember how many times they tased her, but she was ballin in tears and seemed she couldn't move at all.

From what I read in the reports, they said somewhere that being stunned once, you could stand up and walk, but maybe from being stunned some more his body couldn't recover any faster? They also stated that he was Handcuffed and then Tased. I don't know what else to say about this.

[jlick.livejournal.com]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=JCfXZfSH6Qk

'round here they chased around some guy in traffic shooting him 51 times for refusing to stop.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Wow, useless taiwanese cops indeed.

Why the hell were they firing while driving? I'm amazed no civilians got hurt.

[jlick.livejournal.com]

doesn't always work out that way. they killed a teen girl with a stray bullet in another shootout.